This disclosure relates to a liquid distribution unit provided between a container accommodating therein a liquid and a device or apparatus that receives and used the liquid. Further, this disclosure relates to apparatuses such as an ink-jet recording apparatus, image forming apparatus, or the like, that uses such a liquid distribution unit for distributing an ink. For example, this disclosure relates to a liquid distribution unit for use in an image forming apparatus such as copiers, printers, facsimile apparatuses and multifunctional apparatuses for distribution an ink to recording heads.
Conventionally, various ink-supplying means are proposed and put into practice in the field of ink-jet recording apparatuses that conducts printing on a recording sheet such as paper by ejecting ink droplets from a nozzle.
Particularly, there is used a construction of confining an ink in a bag of flexible material and taking out the ink by inserting a needle to the bag. The ink thus taken out is transported to a recording head.
In such a construction, the ink bag is mounted in a recording apparatus at a fixed position in the form of an ink cartridge, wherein the ink bag is typically accommodated in a hard resin case, and the ink is supplied to movable recording head mounted movably upon a carriage by way of a flexible tube, or the like. With such a construction, it becomes possible to avoid using large power motor for driving the carriage that carries the recording head and also the heavy ink tank.
Because of its capability of performing high-density recording by forming minute dots, the recording apparatus of this type is used extensively in versatile printing applications including color printing, while there is recently a demand of further high-quality output, and thus, there is a demand for further improvement of printing quality for both color printing and monochromatic printing, which uses a black ink.
In order to meet for such a demand and to perform the monochromatic printing with high definition, there is proposed a technology of using two or more recording heads for the black color ink and supply the inks of the same black color to the respective recording heads. Thereby, the precision of printing is improved by displacing the printing position between these plural recording heads for the black color.
However, such a construction requires feeding of the inks of the same color to plural recording heads, and the user of the recording apparatus has to purchase plural ink cartridges of the same color, while such use of plural ink cartridges of the same color increases the running cost of the image forming apparatus and increases the chance of confusion caused in the side of the user of the image forming apparatus.